A guildy recently asked "want to sell me 2 crusader enchants at better then your ah price?" I replied sensibly: "I am always willing to charge more." I offered to make it if he brought mats. He decided to just buy a scroll. This might have been related to my having recently bought all the orbs. They were at a good price!

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."Sounds like a decent guild concept. We all work together to get somewhere better together and try to build each other up so we can do better.

I believe the most successful guilds will be someone collectivist: sharing materials and professions. Why? Because the enchant I give my guildy helps me. I lose gold, oh noes. But I make my guildy better able to kill the same thing I want to kill. I could demand a fee, but what do I gain? A bit of gold that I don't need, and he's more likely to have to farm or run dailies, making him just a little bit less happy with the game. Dailies are boring as shit.

I am not a nice person. I am selfish to the core. As are all people. I just think about my selfishness more. Within a guild I can see how I am not a self-made man, but am instead part of a collective* which kills the boss together or not at all. If it doesn't work I can either build them up or go elsewhere. I prefer to not run at the slightest challenge and throw blame to cover my cowardice.

So why didn't I make scrolls for him? His alts do nothing for me. They are luxuries and those are not my responsibility. I do not demand free anything for my alts, nor do I expect it. If I get it, that's great.

Did I lose gold by not selling him a scroll? Of course not. I never lose gold. Only idiots lose gold. My gold is always right where I left it.

7
comments:

Anonymous
said...

I belong to a guild that started from some folks who met on a socialist website, and it's wonderful, comrade. We're not the top guild on our server, but we are the most populous, perform decently in raids, and we rarely lose people. We've already planned out our races to crafting server firsts for all professions.

I dunno why you approach this stuff politically. Guilds are clubs, or just groups of friends. And you help friends out, even if you don't stand to gain for it. Why try to make it more complicated than it is?

Choosing to operate a guild with a collectivist mindset is perfectly acceptable to me. The key word in that statement: "choosing".

When that choice ceases to (or never did) exist and collective imposes its methodology upon the rest who do not wish to live that way, either by expulsion from the collective or by forcible adherence to the collective's whims - then we have a problem.

Color me surprised... OK, not really... that a guild based on collectivism does not rise to the top. (/stare Anonymous)

True, there are numerous exceptions, but with my exposure, the egalitatian ones seem to be the exception.

Actually, I would be surprised if *some* level of collectivism weren't *required* in top level guilds. Maybe it's in the form of free enchants & gem cuts, or maybe it's in the form of a required "tithe" (gold fees, or keeps shards/etc) to ensure adequate supplies of flasks/etc, or gold for repairs.

The diarist of "The Greedy Goblin" asks people to freely give up their time (a goblin's greatest resource) to HIM, for no payment. Nothing other than Gevlon's pride as Chairman (Horde, or "capitalism" is dominating that server.), and a collective warm feeling for the guild collective.

Don't worry dude, it sounds communist at first, the whole removing time from your life and giving it to Gevlon so he can live to be 300 thing seemed really iffy to me too. But, here's the kicker: with the extra wisdom he gains from living that long, he's tooottally going to figure out how to get us into heaven! It's like whoa! It ends up being all Gobliny Capitol-ism in the end man. Way chill.